Entrepreneurship in Dubai After COVID: Accelerating, Confident and Poised to Take an Increasing Role

On March 10th, I returned to the Gulf Region for the first time in four years at the invitation of the UAE Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). I was not sure what to expect after such an extended time period and so many dramatic changes in the world. After a three-day workshop with an extremely active group of entrepreneurs, I leave very encouraged.

My high-level observations are as follows:

1. The gap is closing between the Gulf Region and the rest of the world with regard to innovation-driven entrepreneurship. Coming from a history of trading, the region was always right with SME (Small Medium Enterprise) entrepreneurship but the highly scalable variety created by innovative products was a rare beast. That has definitely changed very rapidly.
2. This progress has been caused by increasing connections to the rest of the world and the development of an increasingly vibrant community. Entrepreneurship is not a solo sport and thrives in clusters. It is not just a support structure but it is also an accelerator from the additional ambition that it creates and the lateral learning that takes place between entrepreneurs. EO UAE has done a fabulous job of catalyzing this and developing programs that are unambiguously focused on and in the best interests of the entrepreneur.
3. COVID has been another unexpected accelerant. When the proverbial chessboard gets knocked over as COVID did, it is an advantage for new agile, and innovative companies. Speed is the friend of the entrepreneur and speed and creativity were essential to survive and thrive in the pandemic, and Gulf entrepreneurs seized the opportunity.
4. Confidence is at an all-time high. Seeing the successes of Careem, Souk, and others from the region, has given not just provided a blueprint for successful innovation-driven entrepreneurship, it is made the entrepreneurial mindset to be something to be proud of. Now the prestige jobs are not just working for a big company or the government, but these entrepreneurs are the new rock stars of the region similar to how they are viewed in the US.
5. Being in person again reminded us of how important personal interactions are to entrepreneurship. COVID brought opportunities for entrepreneurs but there was also a cost. So much of entrepreneurship is about sensemaking and integrating many different intentional and unintentional ambiguous signals so we can see gaps in the marketplace and move forward. Entrepreneurship is a team sport where you are building your team and working with others in the community to quickly garner resources beyond your control. In a Zoom world, this was possible in an intentional way but when in an environment like the three-day workshop, it reminds you of how valuable the unintentional serendipitous collisions are for entrepreneurship.

For me, it was nice to be back in the region and also leading an in-person workshop for the first time in years. The energy was palpable. The community was vibrant. The skill level and accomplishment are higher than ever. The mindset was confident. All of this bodes well for innovation-driven entrepreneurship in the region. A region that very much needs this to create new jobs for the wave of young people hitting the marketplace. The supply of the new young people entering the marketplace cannot be fully employed by the government or large company jobs. As the data shows for the US, the lion’s share of the new job is being created by innovation-driven entrepreneurs and hence their critical role in our future.